Creating Customer Engagement: Automation is Not Enough

During the economic downturn of 2008-09, the need for demand generation became a critical business challenge, and a number of marketing automation players quickly emerged to fill that space.

Companies soon embarked on comprehensive digital strategies that employed automation as a means of capturing, enticing and capitalizing on the customer’s online activity.

And as far as “generating transactions” is concerned, those automation strategies worked well. By monitoring and scoring a customer’s behavior on their website, companies were able to ramp up their online business – as well as meet the challenge of competitor’s online strategies.

But today’s challenge is different: online is now a given, information is transparent, and customers have real-time access to all of it in the palm of their hands

Information and knowledgeable resources are presented when and where they’re needed

Offers and deals are delivered based on past activity

Advice and guidance are offered based on interests, likes or dislikes

Orders are easily and quickly placed – fast “in and out”

Relationships are developed and maintained – long-term “life cycle”

Going forward, companies will need to develop their own customer engagement strategies in order to win in today’s new world – a world where customers rule. It’s about augmenting the technology of automation with the art of engagement:

Note: Variations of this post have appeared previously on client blogs focused on customer experience and engagement. Those prior posts, as well as this one, are all 100% originated and authored by me.